Monday, April 3, 2017

April 3, 2017 (Thegardian) At least 10 people
have been killed after a suspected bomb detonated on a metro train in St Petersburg. The blast
occurred at the Sennaya Ploshchad station, in the centre of Russia’s second
city, at about 2.30pm (11.30am GMT), reportedly as the train was pulling out of
the station. Andrei Kibitov, spokesman for the St Petersburg governor, told Russian
television that 10 people had been killed and 50 injured. Hours later a second
device at another metro station was found and made safe, Russia’s
national anti-terrorist committee said in a statement.

The news agency Interfax quoted law enforcement
sources claiming the blast was caused by explosive material placed in the
carriage. Photographs from the scene showed a metro train in the station with
one set of doors blown out, and a number of people on the ground with injuries.
Eyewitnesses said people had to exit the carriage through the windows as the
doors did not work. Hundreds of people waited outside the station entrance at
street level, along with fire engines and police vehicles. The whole of the
city’s metro system was closed in the aftermath of the blast, and a number of
streets at ground level were also shut off, as medical helicopters landed at
the scene to evacuate the injured. Russian president Vladimir Putin is in St Petersburg, where he
spoke at a forum earlier in the day. About an hour after the blast, Putin
expressed his condolences to families of the victims before a meeting with the Belarus
president, Alexander Lukashenko. He said it was “too early to say” what caused
the blast but that it could be “criminal or terrorist”. Putin said he
had already spoken with the director of the FSB security services and other law
enforcement agencies.

The British foreign secretary,
Boris Johnson, said he was horrified by news of the explosion. “My sympathies are with the victims
and their families,” he tweeted. For many years, Russia
suffered frequent terror attacks from Islamist groups based in the North
Caucasus, including blasts on the Moscow
metro in 2010. However, since a suicide bomber struck at Domodedovo
airport in January 2011, attacks have largely been confined to the North Caucasus itself.

Since Russia
entered the war in Syria,
a number of Islamic State propaganda outlets have said the country would be a
target. However, there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the
explosion.